Movies - Mean Girls

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	Movies - Mean Girls

Mean Girls is a 2004 film written by (and co-starring) Tina Fey. It stars Lindsay Lohan and featured several Saturday Night Live
cast members, including Tim Meadows, Ana Gasteyer, and Amy Poehler. Its director, Mark Waters, younger brother of writer Daniel Waters, described the movie as Clueless
meets Heathers
, the latter of which was written by his brother. It was based on the non-fiction book Queen Bees and Wannabes, which describes how female high school social cliques operate, and the effect they can have on girls.

Plot

Tagline: Watch your back.

The movie is about Cady Heron (played by Lindsay Lohan) who moves to Evanston, a Chicago, Illinois suburb after being raised in Africa by her anthropologist parents; Cady's family moved there after her mother got a job at Northwestern University. The first friends she makes at her new school, North Shore High School, are Damian and Janis, two unpopular kids in the "out-crowd." She later encounters The Plastics (Regina, the Queen Bee, played by Rachel McAdams; Gretchen, played by Lacey Chabert; and Karen, played by Amanda Seyfried) at her new school - three beautiful and popular girls who invite Cady to become their friend. Initially reluctant, Cady joins the group so she can learn their dark secrets at the behest of Damian and Janis. However, when Cady falls in love with Regina's ex-boyfriend, Aaron Samuels (played by Jonathan Bennett), Regina takes revenge by taking him back. Cady, Damian, and Janis plot together to bring Regina down and remove her of her high social status.

Analysis

In an interview about the film, Fey noted, "Adults find it funny. They are the ones who are laughing. Young girls watch it like a reality show. It's much too close to their real experiences so they are not exactly guffawing" .

The role of Janis poked fun at many lesbian stereotypes. For example, the actress who played her, Lizzy Caplan, bore a strong resemblance to Nancy McKeon (McKeon's character on The Facts of Life, Jo Polniaczek, has been parodied in pop culture circles for the last twenty years as being the epitome of "butch dyke"). The character's full name is Janis Ian, a nod to the lesbian singer-songwriter of the same name. While it is hinted at many times during the film that Janis is a lesbian, she is revealed to be unequivocally straight during the denouement, in which she apparently has a boyfriend. Along with several of the film's loose ends, some viewers found this resolution to be unsatisfactory and maintained that this was a "cop out" by the writers.

Though the movie was inspired by the book Queen Bees and Wannabees by Rosalind Wiseman, another non-fiction book for teens, Mean Girls: Facing Your Beauty Turned Beast authored by Hayley DiMarco, was released at the same time as the movie. DiMarco had previously written Dateable: Are You? Are They? and is credited with creating the Biblezine concept while at Thomas Nelson Publishers. Characters and behaviors in the movie are based on Tina Fey's high school life at Upper Darby High School.

Cliques

In the film, the following cliques are mentioned:

Freshmen
ROTC Guys
Preps
J.V. Jocks
Asian Nerds (e.g. Tim Pak)
Cool Asians (e.g. Trang Pak)
Varsity Jocks (e.g. Jason)
Unfriendly Black Hotties
Girls Who Eat Their Feelings (fat girls)
Girls Who Don't Eat Anything (anorexic/bulimic girls)
Desperate Wannabes
Burnouts
Sexually Active Band Geeks
The Greatest People You'll Ever Meet a.k.a. Art Freaks (e.g. Janis & Damien)
...and the worst. "Beware of the Plastics" (Regina George, Karen Smith, Gretchen Wieners)

[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for Mean Girls ]

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Movies - Mean Girls

Plot

Analysis

Cliques

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